Death knight builds
''Instructions to WoWWiki editors: In order to keep this page precise and concise, please DO NOT add complete builds here. For those who are interested in contributing their own builds, please add them to the Death knight build samples. Any build that has over 52 points will be moved to the Death knight build samples. '' ' Due to the extensive changes in patch 3.1.0, all builds not up to date to the new patch when it is released will be deleted.' Blood Talents in this tree focus on physical damage-dealing abilities, such as Blood Presence. Blood PvE builds Blood PvP builds Blood Leveling Builds 3.0.2 [http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jfEMqh0Isf0zzAo Basic PvE Leveling Spec Level 61 (52/0/0)] A Blood Death Knight will rely on physical damage while having above average self-healing abilities to improve survivability. This is more obvious with investing in Vampiric Blood and Rune Tap, and as you level up Improved Rune Tap. You will gain expertise and strength bonuses by investing in Veteran of the Third War, Abomination's Might, and Blood Gorged. However, a Blood Death Knight will shine the best when combining his Death Strike with Bloody Strikes, Dark Conviction, Subversion and Might of Mograine — even more when the Death Knight has Glyph of Death Strike and take full advantage of Blood Gorged by keeping himself at full health the majority of time. Example of useful rotations: :Plague Strike -> Icy Touch -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Obliterate -> Death Coil -> Plague Strike -> Icy Touch -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Death Coil :Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Death Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Death Coil -> Obliterate -> Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Heart Strike -> Death Coil -> Obliterate -> Death Coil Suggested Major Glyphs :Glyph of Death Strike :Glyph of Vampiric Blood Suggested Minor Glyphs :Glyph of Pestilence :Glyph of Horn of Winter '''Please see the Death knight build samples page for more helpful Blood Build Samples Frost Talents in this tree focus on spells and control, such as Frost Presence. Frost is a tree built for critical burst damage. This can be seen in the tree's talents. Frost PvE builds 3.0.8 Frost DPS Skeleton Frost death knight DPS is based around Obliterate, Blood Strike and Frost Strike on the main target, with Howling Blasts for AOE or when the death knight cannot get close. Blood Strike is used mainly to convert Blood Runes into Death Runes that can be used to Obliterate or Howling Blast next time around the rotation. Hungering Cold is generally a good solo and tanking talent, though also has specialized uses for DPS, like infecting a large group with frost fever before unleashing a howling blast or holding adds. There are two main choices for where to put the rest of the points. One is to put them mostly in Blood and take Dark Conviction, Bladed Armor and Killing Machine, the other is to put them entirely in Unholy for the very powerful Summon Gargoyle. Frost PvP builds frost pvp skeleton Let's talk about the frost way in PvP and see why we are the best. What is PvP about? First, we need damage burst and frost has plenty of that. Second we need ranged attacks and frost has decent ranged attacks. Let's look at the frost talents and see which are good for PvP and which are not. *Improved Icy Touch : Sooo good. Improved damage and lower your opponent's attack speed. A must have. *Glacier Rot : more enhanced damage with only one drawback is that your target must ALWAYS have frost fever. *Toughness : Useless. This is for tanks. *Icy reach : A must have, this allows you to become better at range. *Black Ice : Improves the damage of your Icy Touch, Howling Blast and Frost Strike. Max it.. *Nerves of Cold Steel : Useless. DKs need to use 2 handed weapons because a great part of our attacks use a percent damage of our main weapon, so we need the most damaging weapon (not the best dps, the most damaging). In PvP you will rarely even land a melee auto-attack, only the special attacks are important. *Icy Talons : Not so good not so bad, melee haste is a good thing BUT, we rarely land auto-attacks, so this talent is not mandatory. But you can put some point here if you have some. *Lichborne : Ohhh yes. +25% avoidance and immune to all fear and maybe to sap. You must definitely have this. *Annihilation : Not so good , not so bad, the critical attack increase is very welcome but the bonus to Obliterate is very dependent of the use you have of this attack. Personally I don't use it, but if you do, you can put points here. *Runic Power Mastery : Can be useful in pvp to stock runic power on a weak target and to release them all on a tough one or later. *Killing Machine : Could be excellent but you need to land melee attack for this to work and this does not occur so often. *Frigid Dreadplate : Useless, this is for tanks. *Chill of the Grave : More runic power is never bad to take, but not imperative. *Deathchill : A free critical every 2 minutes. Take it. *Improved Icy Talons : If you have put five points in Icy Talons then put one more here. Otherwise not important. *Merciless Combat : More damage when target is close to death. good especially to finish healers with a critical, but not imperative. *Rime : Bonus on Icy Touch is a must and a free howling blast is very good. Bonus on Obliterate depends on the use you make of this attack. *Endless Winter : Free Mind Freezes and required for Chillblains. Take it. *Howling Blast : Your second ranged attack : Mandatory, just take it. *Frost Aura : Not obligatory but this lowers the chance that spell have to land on you alot. *Chillblains : Adds 30% slow movement on all target with frost fever and in PvP movement is everything. Take it. *Blood of the North : Not bad. Allows you to use blood runes to cast much more useful Icy Touches and Howling Blasts, but you need to land Blood Strikes first to do it. *Unbreakable Armor : Unneeded, this is for tanks. *Acclimation : Same as frost aura, this prevents spells from hurting you a lot and as your opponent will very often use spells you should have it. *Frost Strike : Convert runic power into instant attacks, very good and you must definitely have it. With Icy Touch and Howling Blast, this will be your bread and butter. *Guile of Gorefiend : Increases critical strike damage by 45% on the two the abilities you use most often. Take it *Tundra Stalker : More damage on targets with frost fever. Good to take. *Hungering Cold : Very good for skilled players, allows you to crowd control when multiple players are on you, and to stop a flag run. Spend all remaining points in blood to reach Rune tap and maybe Improved Rune Tap. Frost Leveling Builds '''3.0.2 [http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZGxxthxdohoVosx Basic PvE Leveling spec Level 61 (0/52/0)] As stated before, a Frost Death Knight will rely on spells, control and burst damage, for that Icy Talons is a must; Annihilation also is needed so you can use Obliterate in your rotation for high damage without consuming the diseases on the target. Deathchill is preferred over Hungering Cold at this point for any melee hit will unfreeze the targets and Howling Blast will be your AoE bread and butter attack. Avoid attacks that use much runic power until you can spend some points into Runic Power Mastery in the Frost Tree or Butchery in the Blood Tree. Example of useful rotations: :Plague Strike -> Icy Touch -> Blood Strike -> Blood Strike -> Obliterate -> Frost Strike -> Icy Touch -> Obliterate -> Obliterate -> Frost Strike :Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Blood Strike -> Blood Strike -> Obliterate --> Frost Strike -> Obliterate -> Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Obliterate -> Frost Strike -> Obliterate -> Frost Strike -> Obliterate Suggested Major Glyphs :Glyph of Icebound Fortitude :Glyph of Frost Strike :Glyph of Death Strike Suggested Minor Glyphs :Glyph of Pestilence :Glyph of Horn of Winter '''Please see the Death knight build samples page for more helpful Frost Build Samples. Dual Wielding Frost is generally considered the only tree viable for dual wielding. The reason being that all 'strikes' such as Heart Strike, Scourge Strike, Obliterate, etc are heavily dependent on weapon damage, and only the main hand weapon is taken into account. The only talent based attack that is not based on weapon damage is Howling Blast, so it only really makes sense to base dual wield DPS builds around that. Dual Wield Skeleton When dual wielding your auto-attack damage will increase, while your special attack damage decreases. The general strategy is to pick up all talents that increase auto-attack damage or that proc on auto-attacks, and that improve Howling Blast. Must-have talents for a dual wield build are: *Howling Blast *Nerves of Cold Steel *Killing Machine *Icy Talons *Necrosis *Blood-Caked Blade From here it is the player's choice to take extra talents in Blood, Frost or Unholy. In Blood Bladed Armor and Dark Conviction are good choices. In Frost there is Frost Strike (which is still an upgrade on Death Coil despite the weapon damage disadvantage), Blood of the North, Guile of Gorefiend and Tundra Stalker. In Unholy there is Summon Gargoyle, Impurity and Reaping. Unholy Talents in this tree have a variety of functions including summons, diseases, and PvP-focused abilities, such as Unholy Presence. Unholy PvE builds Unholy PvP builds Unholy leveling builds 3.0.2 [http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=jZZfM0IbrkxcqMcsuu Basic PvE Leveling spec Level 61 (0/0/52)] Notable talents and why: *Scourge Strike is the center of your build. *Vicious Strikes to upgrade your Scourge Strike *Epidemic to not waste time reapplying diseases if Glyph of Scourge Strike doesn't proc. *On a Pale Horse because getting to and from quest areas 20% faster is great. *Summon Gargoyle is a major damage talent. *Master of Ghouls to make your pet permanent. *Unholy Aura because +15% movement speed increase is great while grinding mobs that aren't densely packed. *Crypt Fever counts as an extra disease, which greatly increases the damage of all your strikes. Actually one of the best talents in the tree, though it doesn't seem it at first. *Ebon Plaguebringer increases all shadow and frost damage you do, which includes Scourge Strike! Example of useful rotations: :Plague Strike -> Icy Touch -> Death Strike -> Blood Boil -> Blood Boil -> Obliterate :Icy Touch -> Plague Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Blood Strike -> Blood Strike -> Death Coil -> Scourge Strike -> Death Coil -> Scourge Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Death Coil :Plague Strike -> Icy Touch -> Blood Strike -> Blood Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Scourge Strike -> Death Coil Suggested Glyphs *Major Glyph of Death Strike *Major Glyph of Scourge Strike *Major Glyph of Bone Shield *Minor Glyph of Pestilence *Minor Glyph of Horn of Winter *Minor Glyph of Raise Dead Alternative *Major Glyph of the Ghoul *Major Glyph of Plague Strike Please see the Death knight build samples page for more helpful Unholy Build Samples. Tanking See Death Knights as Tanks for more info. Even though each of the 3 trees is capable of tanking, that is only true if you have the appropriate talents within your tree. Tier 1 tanking talents are available to everyone: Blade Barrier, Anticipation, and Toughness. Then, depending on what tree you specialize in, you can pick up additional tanking talents. Blood tanking Blood Tank Skeleton Notable talents in the Blood tree are: *Blade Barrier *Vampiric Blood *Veteran of the Third War - excellent value per point for tanking. *Will of the Necropolis *Rune Tap *Mark of Blood *Might of Mograine - for stronger Death Strikes Blood tanks use Heart Strike as their primary strike, with Obliterate or Death Strike as their second. Blood tanks have good single (and double thanks to heart strike) target threat but are lacking in true AOE threat. Most Blood tanks will take Annihilation in the frost tree to make Obliterate much more convenient to use. Blood Gorged is not recommended because you will not be at full health most of the time. Dancing Rune Weapon is considered a poor tanking talent. Frost tanking Frost Tank Skeleton Notable talents in the Frost tree are: *Toughness *Improved Icy Touch *Unbreakable Armor - arguably the best single tank ability. *Lichborne - besides mitigation this also allows you to heal yourself with Death Coils. *Frigid Dreadplate *Guile of Gorefiend - greatly improves Icebound Fortitude and improves Death Strike. *Howling Blast - good AOE threat ability. *Tundra Stalker - for expertise. The Frost tree has the best mitigation talents of the three. Big bonuses to Obliterate give decent single target threat, alternatively Howling Blast can be used for AOE threat. Frost Strike is a major upgrade over Death Coil for dumping runic power for even more single target threat. Hungering Cold is hotly debated as a tanking ability. Death and Decay will break it, and Pestilence is just as good at spreading Frost Fever. This talent is especially skipped for raid tanks because most raid level enemies cannot be frozen. Unholy tanking Unholy Tank Skeleton Notable talents in the Unholy tree are: *Anticipation *Morbidity - HALVES the cooldown on Death and Decay. *Vicious Strikes - a nice and easily accessible upgrade to Death Strike. *Bone Shield *Shadow of Death *Crypt Fever - counts as an extra disease, which hugely increases Death Strike healing. *Anti-Magic Zone - situational but when it's useful it's usually very very useful. *Unholy Blight - excellent AOE threat *Wandering Plague - more AOE threat *Master of Ghouls - you're much more likely to have him around when you really need to Death Pact. *Rage of Rivendare - for expertise. Unholy tanks have far and away the best AOE threat abilities of the three, with upgraded diseases, Unholy Blight and Corpse Explosion. Unholy tanks will have a greatly improved Death Strike, but Scourge Strike is not as strong as the competition, so single target threat generation is lower than the others. Unholy tanks have amazing magic mitigation if they invest in Magic Suppression and Anti-Magic Zone. See also * Death knight build samples: Contains WoWWiki users submitted complete death knight builds. Category:Guides Category:Death knight talents Category:Wrath of the Lich King